


Haunted by Him

by rhodrymavelyne



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 08:43:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21407407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne
Summary: Dr. Abel Gideon continues to taunt Hannibal Lecter over the loss of Will Graham, even if he's just the ghost of a memory long since devoured...
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Kudos: 13





	Haunted by Him

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place, concurrent with the scene Hannibal imagines (remembers?) of eating Abel Gideon while eating with Abel Gideon in Episode 1 of the third season, where Gideon does get his last jab in, “Because snails aren’t the only ones who like eating with company. If only that company could be Will Graham.” I don’t own Hannibal, but for the last month, it has completely owned me. (wry grin)

Does everything make you think of him? Taste of him? Did you meet someone’s eyes, only to see his looking back at you? Sparkling with vulnerability, reflecting every emotion, which somehow hid his deceit? 

Did he catch you off guard? Or did you catch him the way you catch everyone else? You left him bleeding, yet still whole, still beautiful. Unlike me, whom you served up in pieces to myself. 

Only that wasn’t cannibalism. You insisted upon that point. For cannibalism to occur, we must be equals. I was never your equal, Dr. Lecter. Just a pretender to your power. He was your beloved. You were going to give him everything. How did it feel, to discover he didn’t want it? Did he break your cold heart? Is he still breaking it? You’ve never had his power, for all your insight. Perhaps you thought you could own it by owning him. By guiding and directing his thoughts. Or perhaps he simply fascinates you the way you’ve fascinated so many others? How did you expect keep hold of his thoughts? He’s got so many killers swarming in his head, all shouting and yelling at him to claim their designs. How could you expect to hold his attention, his heart, with all the competition? 

There’s one way you can truly do that. Only you let him go. Did you truly escape from him or did he let you go? Did you get to him, truly get deep inside him, the way he got inside you? Are you inside him still? Is he inside you?

I’m sure you haunt his dreams, if nothing else. His have always been so vivid. Do you dream about him, think about him? I’m sure you don’t lack for companions. With your charm, intelligence, and accomplishments, the credulous and the snobby flock to you like doves. After all, look at Frederick. That’s enough to make me smile, even as you eat me. You may have gotten me, but you get to be surrounded by Fredericks wherever you go. All right, maybe your companions won’t be that tedious. They might even be charming. None of them will be him, though. None of them will replace what you’ve lost, what you’ve allowed to slip through your fingers. 

Look at you now, Dr. Lecter. I’m taunting you from your memories long after I’m dead. I’m twisting myself around your memories, even though I’m not the person you really want to fantasize about. 

Why not just give in? Go ahead and daydream about him. Wonder what he’s doing, what he’s thinking when he wakes up in a hospital bed. Is he thinking of you, even when he tries not to? Will he come to you as you hope he will? 

One thing is sure. If he does come and you leave him your bloody valentine, he’ll definitely see what’s truly in your broken heart. I doubt he’ll be able to escape from it when it claws its way out of the carnage into his imagination. 

You’ll haunt him then, if you’re not already haunting him now. His beloved bogeyman, his personal nightmare. 

I’d pity him if I wasn’t envious. I tried so hard to get your attention, but I was just another Carlotta, croaking on the stage. No, you wanted your precious Christine Daae, the protege you’d trained, shaped, and crafted in your image, you naughty Phantom. Don’t expect the opera to play as you wish, or the chandelier to fall on the right people. Don’t expect your Christine to love you. He’ll betray you for his loyalties are divided. They always have been. Not even he knows whose side he’s on. How could you? He’s seen what lies behind your mask. Do you really think he’ll love you, even if he recognizes some of your ugliness in himself? 

Well, maybe. You’ve got the devil’s luck after all. Success comes so easily to you when the rest of us have to scrabble after it. Perhaps you’ll get everything you want, including him. 

I do enjoy watching you scrabble, even if it’s posthumous.

**Author's Note:**

> The references to Christine Daae, Carlotta, and the Phantom are all from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera. The Phantom manipulated and controlled the opera house in Paris behind the scenes. There he fell in love and trained one of the girls who performed there, Christine Daae. Like Will Graham, Christine was divided in her loyalties between two men. She ended up betraying the Phantom for her lover, Raoul, breaking his heart. The Phantom arranged 'accidents' for those in Christine's way, such as the prima donna, Carlotta, who found herself croaking like a toad on stage after doing so.


End file.
